Working With Plugins

Plugins are bits of software that get loaded by Ardour in order to:

Create various audio or MIDI effects

Generate audio by functioning as "software instruments"

Ardour does not come with any built-in signal processors of its own
(other than volume faders) and it also generally doesn't ship with any
plugins. They are written by 3rd parties, though we do provide some
information on how to get them.

Ardour supports a variety of different plugin standards:

LADSPA

An early, simple, lightweight plugin API, audio effects only,
plugins have no editors/GUI of their own (Ardour provides one, however).

LV2

An extensible, full-featured plugin API, audio and MIDI, plugins can provide their
own GUIs

AU

OS X only, full featured, audio and MIDI, plugins can provide their own GUI

VST

Plugins using Steinberg's VST plugin standard. Varies by platform:

on Linux

(native) Linux VST plugins fully supported (VST2.4)

on Windows

(native) Windows VST plugins fully supported (VST2.4)

on OS X

Not supported, unless you use a VST<>AU
bridge plugin. Similar to Apple's Logic DAW.

Windows VST Plugins on Linux

VST plugins for Windows, but being used on Linux. Not
supported by normal builds of Ardour. Read
more...

Adding/Removing/Copying Plugins

Within Ardour, plugins are just another type
of Processor and so the techniques for
adding/removing/copying/moving processors apply to plugins as
well. These techniques are covered on
the Processor
Box page.